"The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Washington Post Says Democrats Are Racist
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
interesting commentary on the state of things.
things we thought weren't big things, but are bigger things than we imagine, for sure.
The Washington Post does NOT say that Democrats are racist - just that some voters are. Racism is endemic in the United States. The reason that Democrats are encountering it at the moment is that they actually have African-American supporters and candidates. They make an attempt to bridge the racial divide, while the Republicans have used it as a wedge issue to garner the support of the low information voter.
All one has to do is look at the filth spewed by the right-wing (Republican) media to see racism in all its fetid glory. Prime example: the sudden "discovery" of video snippets of Rev. Wright from years ago and their interminable replay on the cable networks. Not really racist, you say? Then where are the relentless sound bites and video clips of the bigotry and stupidity of Rev. Hagee and Rev. Parsley? Hmmmmm...
The thing about the repubs trotting Wright out on terminal play mode on YouTube is the fact that once there is a democratic nominee (especially if it's Obama, which seems imminent), Hagee (a total nut-job all by himself), et al, will find their statements out there 24/7 for all to see and judge.
Hopefully we, as a nation, are better than that.
But we know better than that, don't we?
I only wish that the media would give Hagee equal time. Any minor slipup by Obama (the "bitter" quote for example) is repeated nonstop on the cable networks and "analyzed" by the same morons they always trot out to fill time. Any slipup by McCain (like confusing Sunni and Shiite, or the "bomb, bomb,bomb Iran" quote) may get one or two mentions, but is then ignored.
I doubt we'll see much of Hagee and Parsley on the MSM - they reflect badly on their BBQ buddy, good ol' John McCain.
"The Washington Post does NOT say that Democrats are racist - just that some voters are."
True. Sorta. You'd have been better to write, "just that some Democratic voters are."
Which is noteworthy because that's not really how racism is presented during presidential elections.
As to the larger context of racism, I wonder if these comments are really racism, or if they are just substituting a racial comment for any other slam they would use on a candidate they don't like. See where I'm going here? Are these things being said and done because they don't like black people, or is it because they don't like this black person? Sort of like saying mean things about women when talking about Hillary. Or Mormons and Romney, or Southerners and Huckabee. Moreover, Does the distinction even matter? Is there a difference between the mean spirited use of stereotypes and actual racism?
Having spent a bit of time in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, I can assure you that what you're hearing is not a "spirited use of stereotypes". There are plenty of clips of WV voters out there (Daily Show ran some last night) that prove my point. Also, there just aren't any significant policy differences between Obama and Clinton, and Obama is certainly the more pleasant personality of the two, so I have no doubt that his color is the issue in WV.
Also, this is not a Democratic Party phenomenon. If all the racists in West Virginia stayed home from the polls, McCain would lose by a landslide. The Republicans have been running a thinly disguised racist campaigns since Nixon's southern strategy. We had Reagan starting his campaign in Philadelphia, MS. Then there was Willie Horton, and now there's Rev. Wright. It's just unusual to see this level of racism on the Democratic side.
I think it's hilarious how the media is only playing one side of the race issue.
How about the fact that Obama is black is the only reason he has a shot at the presidency?
Deny it as you may, no white man or woman with his lack of credintials would have such a shot.
amen Salt H2O
Obama is unqualified by only a couple of years as a US Senator, but Bush was qualified by 4 years a governor of the state with the least powerful governor in the nation?
Pulllease!
Post a Comment